FIU students develop solution for protecting smart homes during disasters

Why it matters to you

An unexpected disaster has the ability to cause a serious ripple effect. Two students at FIU aim to remedy this by creating an IoT-focused solution capable of quickly adapting to crisis situations.

With homes fit to the teeth in smart gear, a pair of students from Florida International University devised a way to make these throngs of tech work in a home’s favor during times of crisis. In essence, the duo utilized motion, door, water, and relay sensors provided from smart device manufacturer Centralite to quickly amass and relay data across the internet during a disaster. The hope is that the crowdsourced information gathered helps those capable of responding to act quicker than usual. Furthermore, the novel idea caught the attention of IBM — and its Watson supercomputer — who hopped on board to collaborate.

To come up with the idea, electrical engineering student Adrian Mederos and entrepreneurship undergraduate Valeria Siegrist looked to the how firefighters dealt with the recent California wildfires. During the mounting crisis, those working on curbing the flames traded information via social media channels, providing information for those in homes near the blaze. Using this same idea, Siegrist and Mederos envision smart homes utilizing the Internet of Things (IoT) to talk to each other in a way which — if a disaster occurs — turns off appliances and turns on sprinklers, for one example.

Adrian Mederos

FIU

“Valeria and I know that social media is being used for crises and emergencies. If we mine the data, we can better respond during an emergency, and that’s the solution we were trying to propose,” Mederos told FIU. “The way technology is evolving, we need to react fast so that we don’t have major damages in times of emergencies. The more interconnected we are, the better we can react. It’s only logical to increase our ability to react to these situations.”

IBM joined in on the innovative fun after monitoring the students’ respective progress in other areas at FIU, officially challenging the duo to what it calls the IBM Centralite IoT Device Project. After supplying the package of Centralite gadgets listed above, Mederos and Siegrist got to work. With the help of IBM’s Watson, the team leaned heavily on artificial intelligence and advanced analytics to develop a system for assessing human emotion and reaction in times of crisis. This allowed them to create the foundation for the system’s interconnected IoT data network.

More: Dyson embraces smart-tech innovation at its new research center in Singapore

“We’re bringing a solution that solves a real problem. We want to provide the talent, and this is how students learn,” Siegrist added.

Specific to Florida, a system like Siegrist and Mederos’ boasts the capability of quickly recognizing flood patterns in a county like Miami-Dade, Florida, while transmitting necessary information to those in need. In the event of a riot, as FIU’s report points out, the system might automatically lock doors on people’s homes while simultaneously spreading the word via social media and beefing up police or security in certain areas. Moving forward, IBM and the student duo intend to meet with city officials to show off the project and display its effectiveness.

HTC to only make high-end phones this year, will ditch cheap ones

HTC has once again decided not to make entry-level phones.

During its earnings call earlier this week, the company announced it will ditch cheap smartphones later this year, according to Phonescoop. HTC promised to support cheap phones that have been released, but it wants to focus on high-margin, high-end devices. It will also cut back the total number of new phones to six or seven for the 2017 — all because it needs to think about profitability.

HTC admitted that competition in the entry-level market is why it’s ditching low-cost phones. But this isn’t the first time HTC has reduced its lineup. HTC once forged an exciting segment of the market, adding innovation, but it was then cannibalised by it. In 2012, the company made news when it announced it would only focus on top-tier phones, and since then, it has apparently relaxed on that strategy.

Remember, HTC just announced the U Ultra and HTC U Play at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. They’ll release in March. And last year, it released the HTC 10. But now that’s getting long in the tooth, and with 2017 getting underway, there’s already been plenty of rumours going around about the company’s next flagship, which currently has the codename HTC Ocean.

• READ: HTC Ocean: What’s the story on HTC’s next flagship?

So, for those of you only interested in affordable handsets, it’s best to look past HTC. It’ll be interesting to see how HTC fares going forward.

Google Home Express shopping: Here’s how to find and buy items using just your voice

Google Home has introduced the ability to buy items using your voice.

Thanks to an integration with Google’s Express online shopping service, you can shop for your everyday essentials, whether its paper towels or vitamins, and order them from participating retailers across the US using just your voice. Saying something like “OK Google, order paper towels” results in Google Assistant placing an order for you, and a Google Express courier delivering the item same-day.

Here’s everything you need to know about how the feature, including how to set up payments and which retailers you buy from.

Google Home Express shopping: How does it work?

To get started, say “OK Google, how do I shop?” Due to a gradual rollout, Google said its Google Home Express shopping feature may not always be available. If Google Assistant responds with “try shopping again tomorrow”, try again the following day.

Set up payments

• Open the Google Home app, then tap Menu from the Home screen, and verify the Google Account that is listed is the one you used to set up Google Home. From there, tap More settings.
• Find the section labeled Google Account settings, then tap Payments, and then Get Started. You’ll need to agree to Google’s Terms of Service.
• Choose your default payment method. If you have already added a payment method for Google Play or another Google service, you will be able to select that payment method. Otherwise, tap Add credit or debit card to add a new payment method.
• You’ll be asked to choose your delivery address. Again, you can use one listed with a Google service, or you can enter a new address.
• Once you’re done with that, you’ll see a list of all Google Homes that are successfully set up. Select which one you want to make payments.
• Next to each Google Home, you’ll see a toggle that controls the Personal results for that particular device, such as your personal information, including payments and other things like email. To allow Google Home to use your personal information, slide the slider to the right.
• For a step-by-step guide on how to set up payments, see Google’s FAQ page.

Find and buy items

• To buy an item, like paper towels, just say “OK Google, buy paper towels.” If you don’t specify a store, results will based on your Google Express order history or from other participating stores that carry the item.
• To buy an item, like paper towels, from a specific participating store, such as Costco, say “OK Google, buy paper towels from Costco” or “Purchase paper towels from Costco” or “Order paper towels from Costco”.
• For now you can order things that cost between $3.99 and more than $100 pre-tax. Right now, you cannot buy fresh produce, perishables, most clothing and accessory items, and furniture. The price you hear includes tax, which is determined by the location of the store.
• You may be given a few suggestions. When you hear one you like, answer “Yes” to place the order. ​​If you answer “No,” you’ll get another suggestion. If you say “No” a second time, you’ll find the item on your shopping list in the Google Home app. Your Google Home shopping list is saved in your Google Keep account. It is separate from a Google Express shopping list. 
• If you have questions about your order or need help, contact the Google Home Express support specialists.

Track or cancel orders

• You can double check your order on google.com/express or with your Google Express app.
• You can check the status and details of your package in your order confirmation email or on your Google Express orders page. You’ll also get an email when your order is on its way.
• To cancel your order, go to your Google Express orders page, or you can find where to cancel under Orders in your Google Express app. However, once the order has been prepared for delivery, it can’t be canceled.
• For more information on Google Express orders, see Google’s FAQ page.

Google Home Express shopping: What is Google Express?

Express is an Amazon Prime-like shopping service. It has an iOS app and Android app and is available on the web. It’s straightforward to use and looks like any shopping site. After the free trial, a membership costs $10 per month for monthly members or $95 per year for annual members. For non-members, delivery starts at $4.99 per store.

• Go here to learn more about Google Express fees and plans

Google Home Express shopping: Are there any fees to shop on Google Home?

You’ll see no service fees or store membership fees (like a Costco membership) when ordering with Google Home Express during the launch promo period. That period ends on 30 April 2017. Google didn’t offer any details on future pricing or membership fees. 

Google Home Express shopping: What retailers are available?

You can order from Costco, Guitar Center, Kohl’s, L’Occitane, Payless, PetSmart, Road Runner Sports, Sur La Table, Ulta, Walgreens, and Whole Foods anywhere in the US (except Alaska and Hawaii). However, there may be additional stores specific to your area.

• See the full list of participating stores here.

Google Home Express shopping: When will shopping be available?

Starting 16 February, you can shop for your everyday essentials on Google Home using Google Assistant.

Google Home Express shopping: Where is shopping available?

At launch, Google Home Express shopping is only available in the US (except Alaska and Hawaii). There’s no word yet on when or if it will come to the UK and Europe.

Want to know more?

Check out Pocket-lint’s guides for more handy things you can do:

• Google Home tips and tricks
• Google Assistant tips and tricks

Skype Mobile tests in-call reactions and retooled search

With the wide variety messaging apps adding video calls, Microsoft has been steadily rolling out improvements to Skype to keep up with the competition. Starting today, Skype users can help test a few new beta features that should make video calling and messaging an even more enjoyable experience on mobile devices.

First up on the video calling side: Skype is testing in-stream reactions that work similar to livestreaming services, allowing users to add emoji, text and photos in the middle of video call. Meanwhile, Skype Chat is getting an integrated camera and Slack-like messaging reactions: the former lets users quickly swipe from the side of the screen to bring up the camera, snap a selfie and drop it right in the chat window. The latter works similar to Apple’s own iMessaging reactions and lets everyone in the chat weigh in on an individual message with emoji.

Finally, Skype Chat is also getting a new “Find Panel” that works as a quick search hub for finding and sharing links, movie times, gifs and other tidbits from the web. Swiping from the left side of the chat window, brings up a handy search bar so users won’t have to swap apps to find that important sports score or restaurant address.

The new features are currently available through Skype Preview on Android and iOS before they roll out to all Skype users in the main app. In order to test them out, users will need to either download Skype Preview for Android on Google Play or apply to be a Skype Insider on iOS to get the app through Apple’s TestFlight beta testing program. And, of course, keep an open mind if you run into any bugs.

Source: Skype

Google needs your help building better video analysis algorithms

You probably haven’t heard of YouTube-8M, but it’s a big deal for anyone working in the field of machine learning. In short, it’s a large database of labeled video content that programmers can use to test out their algorithms. Today, Google announced that YouTube-8M is getting a major update, with even more labels across more its videos, as well as audio elements. And the company is also aiming to make the dataset even better with a Kaggle competition, which will offer big bucks from a $100,000 prize pool to teams who build the best algorithms for tagging around 700,000 new videos (using the 8M dataset for training).

“The dataset was created from over 7 million YouTube videos (450,000 hours of video) and includes video labels from a vocabulary of 4716 classes (3.4 labels/video on average,” Google wrote on the competition page. “It also comes with pre-extracted audio & visual features from every second of video (3.2B feature vectors in total).”

Google says it’ll announce the winning teams at the YouTube-8M Workshop held during the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition in July. With up to $30,000 awarded per team, there’s a good chance Google will end up attracting some eager developers. The company is also offering some free Google Cloud credits to early participants.

While the results of the competition won’t directly affect consumers for a while, Google software engineer Paul Natsev notes that whatever they learn will be useful across many different types of videos. Hopefully, that could lead to better searching and content filtering down the line on YouTube.

Source: Kaggle, Google

Zuckerberg’s vague new mission for Facebook

Facebook had already run into rocky territory over the past year, stumbling over censoring historically-significant content and wrestling with its own role in the election, before Trump came to office. Amid an ‘America First’ administration raising uncertainty about how the US fits in with the rest of the world, the social network’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote an extensive letter to the public outlining his company’s next direction — which isn’t to say it’s a new direction. In a sprawling 5,700-word essay, he rallies for globalization and using Facebook to build a massive, integrated community beyond the US. In other words: To keep growing the network and making it more essential for users.

In soaring and ambitious wording, Zuckerberg sees Facebook as the foundation of a social infrastructure enabling a global community. It can help build a supportive, safe, informed, civically-engaged and inclusive international network, his letter states in bullet points. If there’s a concrete step forward he pledges the company will take, it’s that the social network aims to better connect people by their interests so they can create “meaningful” digital versions of local clubs and institutions — online aspects of the infrastructure that binds humans together.

But the rest of the letter is vague on what Facebook will specifically do to push its 1.8 billion users, and the world, toward globalization. Zuckerberg told The New York Times that the international kerfluffle over censoring the ‘Napalm Girl’ photo convinced him to have Facebook adopt a more nuanced, country-specific content rules rather than its previous blanket policy. Ostensibly, this is the thinking behind the social network’s development of censorship tools as it tries to cozy up to China, which experts worried back in November could be abused by a hostile American administration. Maybe.

Overall, Zuckerberg advocates that integrating Facebook more completely into everyone’s day-to-day will repair what he sees as humanity’s increasingly threadbare social ties. This assertion has some teeth: Safety Check wouldn’t be such a successful tool to assure your community that you’re okay if they weren’t all on it to begin with. Fake news wouldn’t be such a threat if people didn’t earnestly share so much real reporting on the site. But clearly, any calls from the company’s CEO to make Facebook even more necessary to its users is self-serving.

At the least, it’s a public acknowledgment that the social network has new challenges it aspires to address — if not be responsible for. As The New York Times points out, his manifesto is a literal update of the founder’s letter Zuckerberg posted when Facebook when public in 2012, which he hasn’t updated since (bucking the annual rewrite most executives do to outline goals in the new year). While his new statement vaguely addresses what the social network could do with its connective power, it still retains the old letter’s simple desire: To connect more people and get them talking — aka, grow the userbase and keep them onboard.

Source: Mark Zuckerberg’s statement

Some poor soul has a Nintendo Switch, but no games

Today is a bittersweet day for NeoGAF user hiphoptherobot. His Nintendo Switch pre-order arrived on his doorstep two weeks ahead of schedule, but he has absolutely nothing to play on it. “I have no games at all,” he told the popular gaming forum. “All I can do is flip through the menus.” In a short video published on Vidme, he does just that — slowly working his way through the console’s set up process, peeking at News page filled with console use tutorials and fiddling with the console’s settings menu.

Despite encouragement from other NeoGaf users, hiphoptherobot is hesitant to take the console online to check out the Nintendo eShop. He’s afraid the store he bought it from might get in trouble with Nintendo for shipping it early. He’s not being completely paranoid — when retailers shipped the Xbox One to customers ahead of schedule, lucky gamers discovered that taking their hardware online could get it banned. Microsoft eventually sorted out the error, promising to reactivate the legitimately purchased consoles, but the process was a headache for everyone involved. The retailer who shipped the consoles early could face repercussions too, which is why the lucky NeoGAF user hasn’t said who made the shipping error in his favor.

Still, it’s a nice, early look at the Switch’s menu system — a minimalist interface that looks a little like a cross between the Android UI, and the PlayStation 4 menu. In his short video, he shows off the system’s system setup and user creation process, its resolution settings, dark and light themes, the screenshot gallery, a tutorial for detaching the console’s Joy-con controllers and a Nintendo News app. That last page seems to be a hub for game news, advertisements and tutorials for taking screenshots, setting up TV mode and charging. It does tease one thing about the Nintendo eShop, however — underlining a banner for the store with the promise of games, DLC and demos. Hopefully, Nintendo will grace us with more information through official channels soon.

Source: NeoGAF

Microsoft Office for Mac gets Touch Bar support

Owners of the Macbook Pro with Touch Bar will be pleased to hear that Microsoft Office now works with the LCD strip Apple introduced with its latest laptop. Support for Touch Bar was announced alongside the new MacBook Pro at an Apple event last October, but Office support is now available to all users. The Touch Bar has special layouts ready for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, with Outlook and Skype additions coming soon. It’s the latest high-profile app to get Touch Bar support and joins other massive apps like Adobe’s Photoshop and Apple’s own Final Cut Pro.

With the new update, Office users can now insert comments, photos and hyperlinks directly from the Touch Bar, while PowerPoint fanatics have new view-specific controls for presentations. Word Focus Mode makes fullscreen useful by moving important style options to the Touch Bar while keeping the main writing window clutter-free. Dragging along the Touch Bar will help users rotate graphic objects more precisely in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. To get the free update, simply check for updates in the Help menu in any Office for Mac apps you have.

Source: Microsoft

Valve may be using a neural net against ‘Counter-Strike’ cheaters

It sounds like Valve is taking advantage of a neural network to combat the spread of cheats in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Posting on Reddit, someone using the moderator-verified Valve Anti-Cheat account wrote that a fix is in the works for folks using spinbot hacks. A spinbot, as Rock, Paper, Shotgun describes it, helps avoid being hit by other players’ weapons. Combined with aiming cheats, it makes the cheater pretty impervious to defeat.

But the type of processing power needed to fuel this sort of endeavor sounds pretty intense considering everything that goes on in a given match, and the amount of matches that take place per day. Seems like Valve has this covered, though.

“The process of parsing, training, and classifying player data places serious demands on hardware, which means you want a machine other than the server doing the work. And because you don’t know ahead of time who might be using this kind of cheat, you’d have to monitor matches as they take place, from all ten players’ perspectives.

There are over a million CS:GO matches played every day, so to avoid falling behind you’d need a system capable of parsing and processing every demo of every match from every player’s perspective, which currently means you’d need a datacenter capable of powering thousands of cpu cores.

The good news is that we’ve started this work. An early version of the system has already been deployed and is submitting cases to Overwatch. Since the results have been promising, we’re going to continue this work and expand the system over time.”

It’s important to note that Overwatch is the company’s system for weeding out cheaters — not Blizzard’s competitive shooter that’s taken the world by storm. Considering Valve’s work on AI in the past and how much the company values its Steam platform, not to mention Counter-strike itself this all sounds pretty realistic.

We’ve reached out for confirmation that this indeed was a post made by Valve, and will update this post should it arrive. Given the outfit’s historic reticence to respond to press inquiries, though, the chances of hearing back may be slim.

Comment from discussion ELI5: Why are spinbots not auto-detected or atleast kicked for ‘improper play’..

Via: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Source: Reddit

The Wirecutter’s best deals: Save $30 on a UE Roll 2 Bluetooth speaker

This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer’s guide to the best technology. When readers choose to buy The Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, they may earn affiliate commissions that support their work. Read their continuously updated list of deals here.

You may have already seen Engadget posting reviews from our friends at The Wirecutter. Now, from time to time, we’ll also be publishing their recommended deals on some of their top picks. Read on, and strike while the iron is hot — some of these sales could expire mighty soon.

Honeywell HCM-350 Germ Free Cool Mist Humidifier

Street price: $70; MSRP: $70; Deal price: $50

This deal matches the previous lowest price we’ve seen on the Honeywell HCM-350, and is the best price we’ve seen in quite some time. Coming in at $20 under the street price, it’s a solid discount. This deal is only available in black.

The Honeywell HCM-350 is our top pick in our guide to the best humidifier. Tim Heffernan wrote, “The Honeywell’s evaporative technology (as opposed to ultrasonic or warm mist), avoids problems common to the other methods, like overhumidification, pools of condensed water around the base, and white mineral dust building up on nearby surfaces. The HCM-350 Germ Free Cool Mist Humidifier is easier to keep clean than nearly every other humidifier we’ve tested, because every part that touches water is free of electronic components and lacks the sharp angles that harbor buildup. And the HCM-350 is the only humidifier we’ve found that has a seamless, molded reservoir, which eliminates a problem common in inferior models: leaks. Evaporative humidifiers like this are not the most powerful type, but in less than two hours, the Honeywell reaches and maintains a comfortable level of humidity in a room up to about 400 square feet.”

Fitbit Charge 2

Street price: $150; MSRP: $150; Deal price: $130

We’ve seen the Fitbit Charge 2 at $130 before, but the key to this deal is in using Visa Checkout. By using Visa Checkout, you can get $25 off on purchases over $100. That drops the price of this Fitbit Charge 2 down to $105 which is a new low price and an incredible deal. Make sure you sign up for a separate Visa Checkout account and that your credit card and address info is correct, then select it during the checkout process and you should see the discount automatically apply.

The Fitbit Charge 2 is our social support pick in our guide to the best fitness trackers. Amy Roberts wrote, “Fitbit has a lock on social support features thanks to its multiyear head start in building its user base. While its trackers aren’t quite as accurate as other makers’, it’s hard to discount the motivation that comes with friendly competition. So if you have friends who already use Fitbit, there’s a benefit to also getting one. The Charge 2, with its trim size, move alerts, and automatic activity tracking (they call it SmartTrack), is our pick for social support. However, heart-rate tracking is where most Fitbits fall short, including the Charge 2. In our tests, its readings were all over the place, so if your exercise program follows strict heart-rate zones, this Fitbit isn’t for you. Also, the Charge 2 (like all Fitbits) is not fully waterproof and merely “sweat, rain and splash proof.” So take it off when you shower or swim. Overall, it’s a user-friendly device for people who prefer to stay in the Fitbit ecosystem, but our other picks are more capable if you’re starting out on your own.”

Canon EOS 80D EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM Kit Refurbished

Street price: $1,080 (new); MSRP: $1,250 (new); Deal price: $850

We posted the camera body alone at $800 new late last year, so to get the lens as well for just $50 more is an excellent bonus. While refurbished, the items in this bundle are covered by the standard one year Canon warranty. Shipping is free.

The Canon EOS 80D is our runner-up in our best midrange DSLR guide. Amadou Diallo wrote, “If you plan to shoot video on a regular basis, or if you already have several Canon lenses you don’t want to replace, we recommend the Canon EOS 80D, which is a significant improvement over its predecessor (the EOS 70D, our previous runner-up). The image quality of this 24-megapixel DSLR isn’t quite as stellar as that of our top pick.”

UE Roll 2 Bluetooth Speaker

Street price: $100; MSRP: $100; Deal price: $69

This is a great deal on our top pick for portable Bluetooth speaker, just matching the previous low we’ve seen it at once before. We normally see this Bluetooth speaker only go on sale for $80, and at over $10 below that, this is a great deal on the UE Roll 2.

The UE Roll 2 is our top pick in our guide to the best portable Bluetooth speakers. Brent Butterworth wrote, “The original UE Roll was our unanimous pick for the best portable speaker when we tested 30 new models last year, and we feel just as strongly about its replacement, the UE Roll 2. Like the original, the UE Roll 2 sounds full, with smooth reproduction of everything from bass notes to cymbals, and it plays loud enough to fill a hotel room or a spot at the beach with sound. It’s so watertight, it will survive being dunked 1 meter underwater for 30 minutes. Seven months of worldwide traveling with the original Roll have only confirmed our love of this design. The only real downside is that it lacks a speakerphone function.”

Because great deals don’t just happen on Thursdays, sign up for our daily deals email and we’ll send you the best deals we find every weekday. Also, deals change all the time, and some of these may have expired. To see an updated list of current deals, please go to The Wirecutter.com.